Courses
-
First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
Toni L. Griffin, Sai Balakrishnan, Kathryn Firth, Lily Song, David Gamble
The first semester core studio of the Master in Urban Planning program introduces students to the fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners…
-
Elements of Urban Design
Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Stephen Gray, Roberto Pasini, Julia Watson, Yun Fu, Mark Heller, Michael Manfredi
“Elements of Urban Design” is the advanced core studio for the post-professional Urban Design program. The studio introduces critical concepts, strategies, and technical skills associated…
-
Housing & Infrastructure in Yucatán: Beyond the Mayan Train
The Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico has been described as “one big flat slab of limestone gently slanting into the sea.” It is a place…
-
Affordability Now!
The United States is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Over the last two decades, rents have risen far faster than renters’ incomes, resulting in…
-
Novi Sad ? The Agency of the Urban Ensemble: Community ? Action ? City
The main objective in this studio is to critically explore Novi Sad, Serbia, the European Capital of Culture 2021. In Novi Sad, we will research…
-
Feeding Boston
The development of postindustrial food supply systems parallels the explosion of the modern city. This studio will deal with an ordinary matter whose future impacts…
-
Spatial Analysis and the Built Environment
David Gamble, Carole Voulgaris
Urban planners engage in many complex processes that defy easy representation. This course provides first-semester urban planning students with the graphic and technical skills needed…
-
Drawing for Designers: Techniques of Expression, Articulation, and Representation
The course is intended as a creative drawing laboratory for designers and an expressive, playful supplement to computer-based labor. This course will…
-
The Idea of Environment
The environment is the milieu in which designers and planners operate. It is a messy world of facts, meanings, relations, and actions that calls them to…
-
History and Theory of Urban Interventions
Susan Fainstein, Norman Fainstein
This course uses historical and analytical readings and case studies to address several major theoretical questions concerning the aims and outcomes of urban interventions. The…
-
Structuring Urban Experience: From the Athenian Acropolis to the Boston Common
This lecture course examines selected cities between the 5th century BC and the 17th century AD, beginning with ancient Athens and ending…
-
Real Estate Finance and Development
Richard Peiser, David Hamilton
This course teaches the fundamentals of real estate finance and development. Lectures and case studies introduce students to the full range of…
-
Land Use and Environmental Law
As a scarce and necessary resource, land triggers competition and conflict over its possession and use. For privately owned land, the market manages much of…
-
Cities by Design I
Rahul Mehrotra, Peter Rowe, Eve Blau, Joan Busquets, Alex Krieger, Farès el-Dahdah
“Cities by Design I” is concerned with in-depth longitudinal examination of urban conditions in and among selected cities in the world. The broad aims are:…
-
Field Studies in Real Estate, Urban Planning and Design
Minneapolis Riverfront & Medford Urban Mixed-Use Redevelopment This field study course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of…
-
Policy Making in Urban Settings (at HKS)
This course is an introduction to policymaking in American cities, focusing on economic, demographic, institutional, and political settings. It examines economic development and job growth…
-
Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Quantitative
This course introduces students to quantitative analysis and research methods for urban planning. The course begins with an examination of how quantitative methods fit within…
-
Analytic Methods of Urban Planning: Qualitative
How can planners understand places in a rich, meaningful, and yet systematic way? This module examines how qualitative approaches can be used…
-
Transportation Policy and Planning (at HKS)
This course provides an overview of the issues involved in transportation policy and planning as well as an introduction to the skills necessary for solving the…
-
Housing and Urbanization in the United States
James Stockard, Jennifer Molinsky
This course examines housing as both an individual concern and an object of policy and planning. It is intended to provide those…
-
Contemporary Developing Countries: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Intractable Problems (at FAS)
This course will provide a framework (and multiple lenses) through which to think about the salient economic and social problems of the five billion people…
-
Economic Development Planning
This course will look at the theory and practice of economic development at the local and regional level, mostly in the context…
-
Experimental Infrastructures
Infrastructure is an encompassing term that can refer to anything from railroad ties to social media to ecosystems, and one which has…
-
Making Participation Relevant to Design
By trying to understand how participation can make design more relevant to society, we can create more socially just cities. This course…
-
Action Research for Open Public Realms
"The best way to understand something is to try and change it."—Kurt Lewin Action researchers work with partner communities to define…
-
Green Cities: Health and Environmental Planning
How are health and environmental planning actually done? Solution-oriented, this class focuses on key areas where physical planning and associated programs and policies…
-
Climate Justice
Recent discourse around climate change—including debates about the Anthropocene, Green New Deal legislation, the plight of climate refugees, the dire warnings of…
-
Principles of Collective Learning (at SEAS)
How do teams, cities, and nation learn? How do they acquire the knowledge they need to improve their capacities, or enter new activities? This course…
-
Built Environment, Human Energy Expenditure and Public Health (at HSPH)
At the completion of this course, students will have an understanding of different built environments and human energy expenditure in those environments. As two examples,…
-
Modern Housing and Urban Districts: Concepts, Cases and Comparisons
This seminar course will deal with “modern housing” covering a period primarily from 1990 to the present. It will engage with “urban…
-
The Spatial Politics of Land: A Comparative Perspective
This course focuses on the deeply contested and political nature of land-use planning. Some would argue that land-use planning is the bread…
-
Market Analysis and Urban Economics
This course examines contemporary real estate trends and cycles. It introduces students to the concepts, models, and methods used to analyze how…
-
Urban Governance and the Politics of Planning in the Developing World
This course starts from the premise that urban politics and governance arrangements shape the definition, form, and practice of planning, and therefore…
-
Mapping: Geographic Representation and Speculation
Maps do not represent reality, they create it. As a fundamental part of the design process, the act of mapping results in highly authored views…
-
Real Estate and City Making in China
Real estate has increasingly become a compelling force in the process of city making, one uniquely capable of leading and guiding multiple steps in the…
-
Independent Study by Candidates for Master’s Degrees
Jesse M. Keenan, Rahul Mehrotra, Joan Busquets, Eve Blau, Michelle Chang, Ann Forsyth, Jeffrey Schnapp, Lily Song, Oana Stanescu, K. Michael Hays, Niall Kirkwood, Gary R. Hilderbrand, Jorge Silvetti, Abby Spinak, Preston Scott Cohen, Robin Winogrond, Jeffry Burchard, Elizabeth Christoforetti, Carole Voulgaris, Andrew Witt, Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo Lopez, Martin Bechthold, Tomás dePaor, John May, Malkit Shoshan, Paola Sturla, Megan Panzano, James Stockard, Toshiko Mori, Allen Sayegh, Richard Peiser, Emily Wettstein, Mark Lee, Jenny French, Lisa Haber-Thomson, Farshid Moussavi, Ewa Harabasz, Nathan King, Robert Pietrusko, Susan Snyder, Ali Malkawi, Jon Lott
Students may take a maximum of 8 units with different GSD instructors in this course series. 9201 must be taken for either 2, or 4…
-
Preparation for Independent Thesis Proposal for MUP, MAUD, or MLAUD
This seminar is intended to provide the theoretical and methodological foundation for completing a graduate thesis in the Department of Urban Planning and Design. By…
-
Independent Study by Candidates for Doctoral Degrees
9502 must be taken for either 2 or 4 units. Under faculty guidance, the student conducts an independent reading program and formulates a thesis proposal.
-
Thesis in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Martin Bechthold, Ann Forsyth, Niall Kirkwood, Ali Malkawi, Erika Naginski, Antoine Picon, Peter Rowe
Thesis in Satisfaction of the degree Doctor of Design.
-
Urban Design Proseminar
The proseminar is a forum for conversation on contemporary urban design. It is structured around three overlapping discussions: the formation of the discipline, critiques of…